Climate Crimes

A Documentary by Ulrich Eichelmann

The fight against global warming should save our planet. Instead, it is speeding up the destruction of our nature and biodiversity.

Climate Crimes takes you behind the scenes of destructive energy policies disguised as green solutions to climate change. Ulrich Eichelmann and his team visit the Mesopotamian Marshes in Iraq, the rainforests of the Amazon and Indonesia, Turkey’s Southeast, as well as protected sites in Germany. All of them could be destroyed within the next decades due to hydropower plants, palm oil plantations and maize fields used to produce biofuel and biogas.

Yet Climate Crimes is a story of unique landscapes, rare species and of humans living in harmony with nature. It is a film about beauty and threats.

Watch the Trailer (find full version below):

“What is currently happening in the name of climate conservation and a green economy is really a rampage against the natural world, a slap in the face of ecological reason.”
Prof. Niko Paech, Economist.

Why you should watch this film

Would you like to see landscapes and animals that you have probably never seen like that before?

Would you like to know how environmentally sound ‘green’ energies actually are?

Would you like to learn more about biogas, hydro-electric power and biodiesel?

Would you like to find out whether the money you spend protects the climate or destroys nature?

Would you like to know where the Garden of Eden is located and what has become of it?

Would you like to see what many nature documentaries conceal?

Would you like to learn about Kayapo indigenous people, Marsh Arabs, as well as about Orangutans and river dolphins?

Would you like to know if green growth is actually feasible and which approach leading economists believe to be effective?

If you do not plan to travel to distant areas of the world yourself, but still want to get an idea of how it looks like, then you have to….

… watch this film!

Full version:

Quality: HD
Duration: 54 minutes
Language: German + English
Written and directed by
Ulrich Eichelmann

Music
César Roson

Camera
Christoph Walder
Christian Kuen
Agata Skowronek

Why I made this film

I have been working in the field of nature conservation and environmental protection for more than two decades, being particularly concerned with rivers. I have always been advocating for climate conservation and I am continuing to do so today. Climate change is a daunting global problem. The internationally recognised necessity for climate protection is a success which can be largely accredited to the civil society and those people, who have been advocating for it over many years.

However, in the last few years I couldn’t help but notice, that climate conservation is increasingly being abused. It is misused as a disguise in order to actualise projects, which would otherwise be difficult to get the legal approval. Climate conservation, used as a deception tactic.

All of a sudden and with impunity, rivers are being destroyed, rain forests are cut down, and cultural landscapes are turned into monocultures, but all of this is no longer condemned as environmental crime, but rather celebrated as green investment and applied climate protection.

Today, climate conservation is verbally omnipresent – in advertising, in commerce, and in politics. However, only lip service is being paid. Not only are climate goals missed on a regular basis, indeed, this faulty form of climate protection has even been accelerating the destruction of our last nature reserves. False labelling with devastating consequences.

Climate Crimes is supposed to be a wake-up call; it is meant to upset and to encourage people to have a closer look. Climate conservation is indispensable, but only that kind of protection that actually mitigates climate change instead of accelerating the destruction of nature. Climate protection by means of the destruction of nature is not climate protection, but an environmental crime.